Being a medical doctor I specialize in English to Polish medical translations, but my most interesting project was Polish to English translation of history of a village - actually it was a part of "The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland" edited in the 19th century - really fascinating and really tough work

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Michael HarrisGermany Local time: 16:17Member (2006) German to English

Yes

Jun 15, 2010

because I tend to avoid translating in fields I am not specialised in:-)

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The question/notion of my "specialization" always leaves me perplexed. I find it scary. Specializing in one field to me suggests being inadequate (=useless) in others. I am told by clients and friends that I am "expert" in a few fields, which is nice of them but doesn't convince me 100%. You don't need to be a brain surgeon to translate works on brain surgery.
I abhor those proz ads demanding translators who "specialize" in one field, which often prevents me applying for the job, and I feel is tantamount to discrimination.
I recently applied for one such job (veterinary medicine) which they initially gave the translation to a "specialist" (a qualified vet) and asked me simply to revise it. After the swathe of errors (in the technical vocab) I found and corrected, they now send me the translations directly. Proof of the pudding and all that....
Some agencies have commented when I mention this that they do so because they are fed up with "translators" telling them they are competent in a field just to get the work, then turn out to be less than able to turn out a decent draft.
Many agencies now also make offers when they do not actually have the work they claim to, saying they are "expanding their translator database" (read: trying to set up a business) and I wish the site would filter them out somehow.
There are a lot of desperate people out their who will make all sorts of claims just to get some work ...

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I didn't quite know how to deal with this, which is a frequent case. I specialise in one of the multidisciplinary fields involved in such titles as "A History of Hydraulic Engineering", but it's not, strictly speaking, my specialisation.

Otherwise, I love most of my legal cases, and yes, I specialise in them.

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It was a field I work in but not all that often. I translated a user manual for a software used for assessing criminal behaviour. It wasn't really all that technical and had a lot of interesting elements of ciminology, psychology and statistics. It was also a large project so it paid well! I am due to get another project soon from the same client, about youth gangs.

I also did one recently, not translation but revision of a large report on wildlife and parks management in west africa...a lot of latin animal names and geographical information that was fascinating. I thought, I have to go to this place and see some of these animals!

[Edited at 2010-06-15 19:29 GMT]

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I have a book translation on the history of the Roman legal system. Which is before my historical speciality (medieval). However, it involves rhetoric and also the interpretation of historical documents (whom can we believe, to what degree), which is very close to my doctoral work.

It's been really fun. My biggest fear is that I will not be able to do justice to some rather lively presentations of Roman trials.

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I work in quite a few fields. At different times due to reasons beyond my control my preferences changed from politics to finance to industry to defense to geology and oil and back. I liked many projects finding something new and exciting regardless of whether they related to ballistic missiles or stock market. Therefore, I cannot say whether my favorite ones belonged to a certain one (or few) of my chosen fields of expertise.

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I particularly enjoyed translating an article based on some research into the wealth of 18th century households in villages and small towns in a cloth producing area of Spain (Palencia for the cognoscenti) as revealed by the inventories that were carried out on the deaths of householders. Tedious? No, fascinating. In this time of such consumerism, the short lists of cotton nightshirts and wool stuffed mattresses, together with a few items of furniture, have been high up in my mind ever since.

Miles away from my specialization at the time, but I made it my business to learn a great deal more in order to continue to work with this client, who has provided me with stimulating texts ever since.

[Edited at 2010-06-16 07:39 GMT]

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